She thought he was a landscaper. Then he attacked her with a chainsaw.

Like a scene out of a horror movie, a man crouching in the bushes emerged suddenly wielding a chainsaw and randomly attacked a woman in Lantana Tuesday morning.

The man, identified by authorities as Juan Carlos Cabrera Jr., 20, pounced on the woman while she was walking by a Super 8 motel in the 1200 block of Hypoluxo Road, where he was allegedly staying, reports CBS12.

The 64-year-old victim, Marie Geffrard, told responding officers she assumed that the man was a landscaper because of the chainsaw, said Lantana police chief Sean Scheller.

She assumed correctly.

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“He approached her, there was a physical contact and he threw her on the ground, proceeded to fire up the chainsaw and strike her on the upper chest,” Scheller said in a press conference. “She tried to defensively get away and it struck her on the hand as well.”

The woman’s left hand was severed, but surgeons at Delray Beach Medical Center managed to reattach it. The injuries to her chest were not life threatening, according to the police chief.

Scheller said the Lake Worth man could not confirm if the alleged assailant suffers from mental illness but he did say Cabrera made a disturbing comment about the random passerby after his arrest.

“He did make a comment to the investigator that he saw the lady in the area and stated I am going to end this woman’s life.”

Cabrera faces an attempted premeditated first-degree murder charge; he remains in custody on no bond at the Palm Beach County Jail.